Longmire wary of Giants’ AFL attack

The fickle nature of form has Sydney coach John Longmire downplaying his side’s impressive AFL position.

Second-placed Sydney lurk just one win behind competition leaders North Melbourne, with their only loss being to the Swans.

Sydney start the second half of their campaign on Sunday with a derby against the GWS Giants at Spotless Stadium.

Successive wins over competition heavyweights Hawthorn and North Melbourne and stragglers Gold Coast have Sydney well placed to push for a fifth grand final in 12 seasons.

Longmire wasn’t about to talk up Sydney’s finals’ prospects when asked to assess the first half of their season.

“Our form has been reasonably consistent,” Longmire said on Tuesday.

“But we know how fickle that can be if you’re not working at it all the time, both at training and during games.

“That’s the challenge of AFL footy is to try and keep going with your form and keep raising the bar and lifting your standard and that’s what we’re going to try and do.

“We have to keep doing that because of the quality of the opposition that we play.”

Longmire rated the Giants’ form as “pretty solid” despite successive away losses to Adelaide and Geelong.

“We know they are the No.2 attacking team in the competition as far as goals scored,” Longmire said.

“They are very good from stoppages. They are a quality team and we’ll need to be playing really well to beat them.”

Swans co-captain and midfielder Kieren Jack was also respectful of the Giants’ offensive capabilities.

“They are a very attacking team, very quick of that half-back line, very good at stoppages too, so they are certainly some elements we will need to try and curtail,” Jack said.

Boom Swans youngster Callum Mills will return to the side after being rested from the Gold Coast match.

Sydney will wait until later in the week to make a decision on another tyro, forward George Hewett, who suffered concussion last weekend.

Longmire said a decision would also be made over coming days on centre half-forward Sam Reid, who has yet to play a senior game this season and was taken off at halftime of the reserves match last weekend after feeling achilles tightness.

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